Postal Collage Project No. 1

The project, begun in September 2011, involved fifty collaborators assembled in ten groups, ranging in age from 4 to 82, hailing from the USA, Ireland, the UK, Denmark, France, Germany, and Australia. There were two international groups and eight USA only; three groups were made up of children.

52 collages were exhibited in the historic Shuman Block in Berkeley, California in February 2012, and at Ramon’s Tailor salon-gallery in San Francisco in March and April 2012.

Groups of contributors living in varied locations, from different neighborhoods to different continents, will send and receive works-in-progress, and contribute to that progress. Finished work will be exhibited in Berkeley, California, February 2012.

Each group of five contributors will create FIVE collages. The collages will be developed in the following manner:

• Each member of a group of 5 will begin a collage. On the backside, the contributor will write their name, the date, and a word or phrase (a working title).

• They will mail (or deliver) the work-in-progress to the nearest fellow contributor to the east, and thus, receive a work-in-progress from the nearest fellow contributor to the west.

• Each contributor will add to the collage they’ve received, record their name and date (and perhaps an updated working title), and send it along like the first one, and so on…

• Eventually, each contributor will receive the collage they themselves initiated; they will complete that collage, add the date and a final title to the backside, and send it to Berkeley for exhibition.

A note on size and weight: in order to keep postal costs down, dimensions are limited to 9X12″ (229 x 305 mm) or smaller, and the use of flat, lightweight materials, such as paper and fabric, is requested. Fold-outs and pop-ups are fine, as long as they fold/flatten down to 9X12″ or smaller, and are mailable in an envelope (not a box).